


The Memories That Hold Us Back

by Cogentranting



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Post series finale, arrow finale timeline, in which i discover that platonic flommy is my jam, paternal tommy merlyn, uncle tommy and his niece mia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28521462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cogentranting/pseuds/Cogentranting
Summary: After a fight with Felicity, 12 year old Mia runs away and winds up spending some time with Tommy.A look at the post-finale timeline, and one pieces of the extended family surrounding Felicity and Mia.
Relationships: Felicity Smoak & Mia Smoak, Tommy Merlyn & Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn & Mia Smoak
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	The Memories That Hold Us Back

Felicity nearly dropped the phone in her haste to answer it. “Tommy! Tommy, is Mia there?” Her voice was fragile with the held-back tears.

Tommy’s voice came over the phone, weary with freshly broken tension. “Yeah. She just showed up. Little cold, little teary, but she’s fine.”

Felicity pressed the phone to her chest and allowed herself a single shaky sob. She wiped her eyes, drew in a deep breath to collect herself, and put the phone back to her ear. “Did she- did she walk all the way over there?” She couldn’t quite order her thoughts yet.

“Said she took the bus.” He glanced into the next room at the scowling 12-year-old who was sitting on his couch, hugging her knees to her chest, face puffy from crying, hair damp from rain, muddy shoes staining the couch cushions.

Felicity nodded furiously, forgetting Tommy couldn’t see her.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I uh…” Her thoughts were static. “I’m sorry I can’t think. We just… had this fight, this _stupid_ fight. And then I went upstairs, and she was just _gone_.” Her breath caught on the pictures in her head. A sword stained with blood sitting on a table in the foundry. Diaz in her living room as William ran terrified for the door. Oliver walking out the door of the cabin that night.

“I know.” Tommy’s voice was gentle. He did know. Both versions—the ones he’d been there for, and the ones he remembered differently that Felicity and Diggle and Thea had recounted their version of. When the first frantic call from Felicity had come that evening, saying Mia was missing, he’d had his own memories to choke on too. Not the least of which was his father, standing in a doorway telling him the news of the Gambit sinking, Sara, Robert, and Oliver dead, and then turning away without bothering to check if his bullet words had left Tommy with a pulse. But Tommy twisted himself free of the past. For Felicity. For the miserable spitfire on his couch. For Oliver. “I can drive her back home right now,” he offered. “Or, if you want, she can stay here tonight. Take some time to cool down, and I’ll bring her home in the morning. It’s up to you.”

Felicity pulled at a strand of her hair. “She’s safe?”

“She is 100% healthy and safe.”

She sighed. “She has her father’s temper.”

“Well, to-date she hasn’t killed anyone, so we can thank God for that.”

She laughed. “Plenty of time for that.” She paused. She’d called Moira too, in her panic over finding Mia missing. She needed to call and update her. And Emiko. And Rene. And Quentin. Luckily, Tommy had called her back before she got to the point of calling the out-of-town people. Or dragging half a dozen superheroes to town. No emergency trip to Star City for Barry and Kara tonight. “If I drag her home now, she’ll just be more upset. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll talk to her, calm her down.”

“Ok. Thank you. Do you need me to bring anything over?”

“Nah. We’re good. If we need to, I have some of Laurel’s old stuff we can make work.”

“Ok.” Felicity was calmer now, her mind beginning to turn with logistics. “And Tommy- not too much fun? I don’t want her to think any time she’s mad she can just run off to Uncle Tommy’s and get ice cream and movies.”

“No ice cream, I promise. Maybe a little comfort food. And tomorrow you can read her the riot act.”

Mia looked up as Tommy came back into the living room. Her face was still fixed in the death glare that made her look so much like her father. Tommy half-expected her to pull a flechette from her hoodie and fling it at him.

“Your mom agreed that you can stay here tonight.”

Mia’s glare wavered a little, and she nodded. Tommy settled onto the other end of the couch with a sigh.

“So, you and your mom had a fight.”

“She never lets me do anything.”

Tommy had no idea what it was that Felicity hadn’t let Mia do. Knowing the kid, it was probably jumping out of a plane or cage fighting or something. “Well, she is your mom. She gets to make those calls.”

She huffed. “Easy for you to say. I heard your dad let you do whatever you want.” Tommy’s surprise must have shown on his face because Mia had the grace to look sheepish. “I overheard Quentin saying something about it to Mom last time he came over.”

The kid was turning into a real eavesdropper. He blamed Thea teaching her how to climb rafters and sneak around without a sound. Still, not exactly a surprising comment from his father-in-law. And Tommy bet he could guess where that conversation had gone. “Uh-huh. And what _exactly_ did he say about that?”

Mia looked caught out. She pursed her lips and wouldn’t meet his eye. 

“Well?”

“That it was miracle you turned out as well as you did,” she muttered into her shoulder.

“That’s what I thought. Ergo, we will not be taking my dad as a role model.”

“And then Mom brought up the Nazi you from another Earth.”

“Right.”

Mia’s defenses wilted a little. “She doesn’t want me to learn to fight.”

So it _was_ cage fighting. Or close enough.

“Ah.”

“She doesn’t understand! She doesn’t want me to be me; she just wants another little clone of her and William.” Mia was starting to work herself up again.

Tommy was at loss. Of course she would want to learn that. And of course Felicity would hate that. Even he was struck cold at the thought. Mia following in her father’s footsteps. All the pain that had caused Oliver. What it had cost him eventually. How could any of them want that for Mia? But he also knew what it had given to their family. The way that that life had transformed Oliver (and Thea, and Laurel, and all the others) for the better. He hadn’t needed that, and he didn’t want Mia to need to that, but it had been good for the others all the same.

And they all knew what hung over Mia. The secret they’d kept from her. That echo of inevitability-- a little glimpse of the future that Sara had brought them at Oliver’s funeral. One of Oliver’s final acts had been to pass the hood to Mia. And one day she’d remember that. He could never take that from her. Those limited memories of Oliver that one day she’d get back. Looking in her eyes, Tommy saw Oliver again. But this time not his temper. This time it was the Green Arrow. He just wanted to spare her from her heroism for a few years more.

Mia took Tommy’s silence as encouragement. “I don’t have to take it! I’ll run away-“

“You kinda already did.”

“- and get Aunt Thea to teach me-”

“She will send you right home.”

“- Or Anatoly or Nyssa-” Her eyes gleamed darkly as inspiration kindled. “Or Slade.”

“No way that that could go wrong.”

“Is Talia Al Ghul still alive? Her too.”

“We have got to stop telling you stories about so many criminals. Who even told you about Talia? Rene?”

Mia had forgotten Tommy’s presence entirely. She stood up on the couch, exhilarated by the cascade of her imagination. “They’ll train me. And I’ll travel the world with them. I’ll be best the warrior in the world! Better than Aunt Thea. Better than Aunt Emiko. As good as-“ _my dad_. The words didn’t leave her lips, but they reverberated in the air all the same. Mia picked up her thought again without acknowledgment. “Then I’ll come back. And I’ll join Barry and Kara and Clark. I’ll be a hero.”

In her posture he saw it, like flashes of newsreel. Oliver standing on a car calling to the crowd. Then in a suit behind a podium. Then staring into a camera with hands cuffed behind him.

“Hey Kid. Sit down. Or at least take off your shoes. You’re getting mud all over my couch. You’re not on Lian Yu yet.”

Mia was shaken out of her daydream. She blushed and flopped down on the couch.

Tommy rubbed his face. It should be Mia’s father sitting here, not him. Or at least a better substitute. Diggle. Or Quentin. Someone who could play this part better.

“Mia...” She eyed him warily. He shifted gears. “First, a couple flaws in your plan. One: Thea and Emiko aren’t gonna go behind your mom’s back. Two: Anatoly is way too scared of your mom to go against her. Three: he’s in Russia—how do you plan to get there?”

“Buy a plane ticket.”

“That is exactly the reason why you can’t access your trust fund yet. Four: Slade and Talia are in hiding- how are you going to find them?”

“The burner phone he gave mom.”

“…we’re gonna talk about that later. Five: you’d have to leave behind all your family and friends.” Mia rolled her eyes. “What, you’re saying you wouldn’t miss me?”

Mia ran a hand through her rain-bedraggled hair and lifted her chin imperiously, doing her best to channel her inner Moira Queen. “You can visit. Sometimes.”

“Well thank you, that’s very generous. Six: there’s no Big Belly Burger in… wherever Slade hides out.”

“I’ll be in training. No fast food.”

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair. Your dad always made an exception for Big Belly Burger. Never slowed him down.”

He could practically smell the grease in that old booth in the Glades. Practically hear Oliver’s laugh. Feel his own bruised ribs.

Mia hunkered down into her hoodie. “My dad would let me do it.” Her voice was small.

“Mia, everything your dad ever did was to keep people safe. People like you. And me. He’d want you to be safe. And that’s all your mom wants.”

“But she’s so _over_ protective.”

“Kid, you have to understand where’s she coming from. She’s been through a lot. Lost a lot.”

“So, what—I’m never supposed to take any risks? Just stay locked up in my room for the rest of my life. The headlines will all say, ‘Green Arrow’s daughter does _nothing_!’ I can be like him—I can help people!”

“There are lots of ways to help people. And, maybe, one day, when you’re older, you’ll decide that you want to do that just like your dad did. Or like your mom,” He added pointedly. “But, you’re still just a kid, Mia. Right now, you have to listen to your mom. You have to help _her_. She needs you safe.”

Mia scuffed her foot on the floor and stared at the wall.

Tommy pressed on. “You know she was terrified tonight.”

Mia scoffed. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

“She was terrified,” He repeated. “We all were. You’ve heard the stories, you know the things that have happened, to her, to William, to all of us. What do you think she thought when she didn’t know where you were?”

Mia picked at the sleeve of her hoodie. “I didn’t mean to.”

Tommy smiled. “I know.” She was a kick-the-door-in kind of kid, that was for sure. He wondered what Oliver would have told her. What could slow that headlong charge. He laid a hand on her knee. “Even if all the headlines say, ‘Green Arrow’, don’t forget about Overwatch. She’s a hero too, you know. Try to cut her some slack sometimes, huh?”

Mia nodded, reluctantly meeting his eyes. Tommy’s smiled widened into that bright grin which had drawn so many people him over the years. He stood up. “So. I’m thinking we watch a movie and order some food.”

Mia lit up with a grin of her own, already grabbing for the remote. Her troubles had slipped away for the time being, back to the shadows of some future night. And Mia was electrified, chattering about some new movie she wanted to watch, which was just like that one he’d shown her before. Her spirits leapt and flickered like new, reassuring Tommy. She wore Oliver’s storm clouds when she was angry, but when the sky cleared, she shone like Felicity.

Tommy headed to the kitchen where he’d left his phone. As he passed by, he paused to lightly squeeze Mia’s shoulder, and she settled into his couch like she owned the place.

“So. Sushi or Chinese?”

“Pizza.”

“There’s that refined Queen palate. Done and done. And take off those muddy shoes.”

Felicity was waiting at the door when Tommy drove up with Mia the next morning. She could see them laughing through the window, but Mia sobered as Tommy shut off the car. The girl got out slowly. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and shuffled her feet on the walk. But at the door she faced Felicity with the type of open-hearted honesty and confidence befitting a Queen.

“I’m so sorry, Mom.”

She might have said more, but before she got the chance Felicity had snatched her into a fierce hug, her “I love you” muffled by the fact of her face being pressed into her daughter’s hair. They lingered.

Felicity pulled free, dashing away a tear before her daughter could see it. “Go on inside. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Mia turned to say goodbye. Tommy waved, and she smiled back at him like a reflection of all the bright memories of the boyhood he and Oliver spent as brothers. Then she ran inside, her own shoulders light with lack of memories, feet lifted high by stories.

Felicity smiled. A little tired. A little sad.

“Thank you, Tommy.”

“Anytime. Love spending time with my niece.”

Felicity pulled her cardigan a little closer around herself and searched for the words she needed. The morning was cool and fresh after the rain.

“It would mean the world to him, you know. Having you here. Knowing she can count on you.”

Tommy dipped his head. He blinked away a sheen in his eye and tried to make his smile carefree. “Next movie night, you’re joining us. And next time there _will_ be ice cream.”

Felicity laughed a little around the ache in her throat, and Tommy started to get back into his car. Something stopped him for a moment more. He looked back up at her.

“You’re doing a great job, Felicity.”

“So are you.”


End file.
